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I've long been convinced that every well-run Drupal agency of 30 people or more can afford to hire a Drupal core contributor and let him/her work on Drupal core pretty much full-time. A healthy Drupal agency with 30 people should be able to do $5MM in revenue at a 15% net profit margin #1. This means they have $750k in profits that can be invested in growth, saved as reserves, or distributed among the owners.

There are many ways you can invest in growth. I'm here to argue that hiring a Drupal core contributor can be a great investment, that many Drupal agencies can afford it, and that employing a Drupal core contributor shouldn't just be looked at as a cost.

In fact, Chapter Three just announced that they hired Alex Pott, a Drupal 8 core maintainer, to work full-time on Drupal core. I couldn't be more thrilled. Great for Alex, great for Drupal, and great for Chapter Three! And a good reason to actually write down some of my thoughts.

The value of having a Drupal core contributor on staff

When Drupal 8 launches it will bring with it many big changes. Having someone within your company with first-hand knowledge of these changes is invaluable on a number of fronts. He or she can help train or support your technical staff on the changes coming down the pipe, can help your sales team answer customer questions, and can help your marketing team with blog posts and presentations to establish you as a thought-leader on Drupal. I believe these things take less than 20% of a Drupal core contributor's time, which leaves more than 80% of time to contribute to Drupal.

But perhaps most importantly, it is a crucial contribution that helps ensure the future of the Drupal project itself and help us all avoid falling into the tragedy of the commons. While some core contributors have some amount of funding — ranging from 10% time from their employers to full-time employment (for example, most of Acquia's Office of the CTO are full-time core contributors) — most core contribution happens thanks to great personal sacrifice of the individuals involved. As the complexity and adoption of Drupal grows, there is a growing need for full-time Drupal contributors. Additionally, distributing employment of core contributors across multiple Drupal organizations can be healthy for Drupal; it ensures institutional independence, diversified innovation and resilience.

Measuring the impact of a Drupal core contributor on your business

While that sounds nice, the proof is in the numbers. So when I heard about Chapter Three hiring Alex Pott, I immediately called Chapter Three to congratulate them, but I also asked them to track Alex's impact on Chapter Three in terms of sales. If we can actually prove that hiring a Drupal core contributor is a great business investment, it could provide a really important breakthrough in making Drupal core development scalable.

I asked my team at Acquia to start tracking the impact of the Drupal core contributors on sales. Below, I'll share some data of how Acquia tracked this and why I'm bullish on there being a business case.

For Acquia, high quality content is the number one way to generate new sales leads. Marketers know that the key to doing online business is to become publishers. It is something that Acquia's Drupal developers all help with; developers putting out great content can turn your website into a magnet. And with the help of a well-oiled sales and marketing organization, you can turn visitors into customers.

Back in December, Angie "webchick" Byron did a Drupal 8 preview webinar for Acquia. The webinar attracted over 1,000+ attendees. We were able to track that this single piece of content generated $4.5MM in influenced pipeline #2, of which we've managed to close $1.5MM in business so far.

Even more impressive, Kevin O'Leary has done four webinars on Drupal's newest authoring experience improvements. In total, Kevin's webinars helped generate $9MM in influenced pipeline of which almost $4MM closed. And importantly, Kevin had not worked on Drupal prior to joining Acquia! It goes to show that you don't necessarily have to hire from the community; existing employees can be made core contributors and add value to the company.

Gábor Hojtsy regularly spends some of his time on sales calls and helped close several $500k+ deals. Moshe Weitzman occasionally travels to customers and helped renew several large deals. Moshe also wrote a blog post around Drupal 8's improved upgrade process using Migrate module. We aren't able to track all the details yet (working on it), but I'm sure some of the more than 3,200 unique viewers translated in to sales for us.

Conclusion: investment returned, and then some

Obviously, your results may vary. Acquia has an amazing sales and marketing engine behind these core contributor, driving the results. I hope Chapter Three tracks the impact of hiring Alex Pott and that they share the results publicly so we can continue to build the business case for employing full-time Drupal contributors. If we can show that is not just good for Drupal, but also good for business, we can scale Drupal development to new highs. I hope more Drupal companies will start to think this way.

Footnotes

#1 I assumed that of the 30 people, 25 are billable and 5 are non-billable. I also assumed an average fully-loaded cost per employee of $125k per head and gross revenue per head of around $180k. The basic math works out as follows: (25 employees x $180k) - (30 employees x $125k) = $750k in profit.

There are 365 days per year and about 104 weekend days. This means there are 260 business days. If you subtract 10 legal bank holidays you have 250 days remaining. If you subtract another 15 business days for vacations, conferences, medical leave and others, you have 230 business days left. With a blended hourly rate of $130 per hour and 75% utilization, you arrive at ~$180k gross revenue per billable head.

I confirmed these numbers with several Drupal companies in the US. Best in class digital agencies actually do better; they assume there are 2,000 billable hours in a year per head and maintain at least a 85% chargeability rate (i.e. 1,700 billable hours per head). Many companies do less because the maturity of their business, the market they are in, their geographic location, their ambitions, etc. It's not about what is "good" or "bad", but about what is possible.

#2 "Influenced pipeline" means that the content in question was one factor or touch point in what ultimately lead potential customers to become qualified sales leads and contacted by Acquia. On average, Acquia has 6 touch points for every qualified sales lead.

This blog post is on purpose, Open Source, profit and pie. This week I had an opportunity to meet Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. I was inspired by the following comment he made (not his exact words):

"Because companies strive to have a positive balance sheet, they take more in, than they give out. However, as individuals, we define success as giving more than you take. Given that many of us are leaders as individuals *and* also leaders in our businesses, we often wrestle with these opposing forces. Therein lies the leadership challenge."

I’ve seen many Open Source developers struggle with this as they are inherently wired to give back more than they take. Open Source developers often distrust businesses, sometimes including their own employer, because they take more than they give back. They believe businesses just act out of greed and self-interest.

This kind of corporate distrust comes from the “fixed-pie concept"; that there is only so much work or resources to go around, and as pieces of the pie are taken by some, there is less left for everyone else. The reality is that businesses are often focused on expanding the pie. As the pie grows, there is more for everyone. It is those who believe in the "expanding-pie concept" who can balance the opposing forces. It is those who believe in the "fixed-pie concept" who worry about their own self-interests and distrust businesses.

Imagine a business that is born out of a desire to improve the world, that delivers real value to everyone it touches. A business that makes employees proud and where team members are passionate and committed. A business that aspires to do more than just turn a profit. A business that wants to help fuel a force of good. That is Acquia for me. That should be your employer for you (whoever your employer is).

The myth that profit maximization is the sole purpose of business is outdated, yet so many people seem to hold on to it. I started Acquia because I believed in the potential and transformative nature of Drupal and Open Source. The purpose of business is to improve our lives and create value for all stakeholders.

Acquia's growth and capital position has given me power and responsibility. Power and responsibility that has enabled me to give back more and grow the pie. I have seen the power that businesses have to improve the world by accelerating the power of good, even if they have to take more than they give. It's a story worth telling because business is not a zero-sum game with one winner. I believe Open Source companies are in a prime position to balance the opposing forces. We can do well and do good.

This is something I've been hoping to see in the community. While there have been other experiments around certification, we as a community have lacked a way to ensure professional standards across Drupal. Over the years, I've heard the demand coming from partners and clients who need a way to evaluate the skills of people on their teams. More and more, that demand has drowned out any perceived criticisms of a certification for Drupal.

A good certification is not just a rubber stamp, but a way for people to evaluate their own abilities, and make plans for improving their knowledge. In some countries, certification is really important to create a career path (something I learned when visiting India). For these reasons, I feel Drupal's growth and development has been hindered without a formal certification in place.

The certification we've built is based on the combined years of experience among Acquia staff who oversee and manage thousands of Drupal sites. We've observed patterns in errors and mistakes; we know what works and what doesn't.

People have debated the pros and cons of software certifications for years (including myself), especially where it involves evaluating candidates for hire. Certainly no certification can be used in isolation; it cannot be used to evaluate a candidate's ability to perform a job well, to work in teams or to learn quickly. Certification can, however, provide a valuable data point for recruiters, and a way for developers to demonstrate their knowledge and stand out. It is undeniably valuable for people who are early in their Drupal career; being certified increases their chance to find a great Drupal job opportunity.

One of the biggest challenges for Drupal adoption has been the struggle to find qualified staff to join projects. Certification will be helpful to recruiters who require that job candidates have a good understanding of Drupal. There are many other aspects to recruitment for which certification does not provide a substitute; it is only one piece of the puzzle. However, It will provide organizations added confidence when hiring Drupal talent. This will encourage the adoption of Drupal, which in turn will grow the Drupal project.

The community has been talking about this need for a long time. One approach, Certified to Rock, evaluated an individual's participation and contribution in the Drupal community. Acquia's certification is different because we're assessing Drupal problem-solving skills. But the community needs more assessments and qualifications. I hope to see other providers come into this space.

Today, the web is not just about publishing content anymore. As the web evolves from content management to digital experience management, it's about understanding visitors' interests and preferences, and figuring out how to deliver them an optimal personalized experience. Many organizations are exploring ways to more effectively create and deliver valuable content to site visitors to increase traffic, conversions and revenue. Great content is still gold, but delivering the right content to the right user at the right moment in the right format is platinum.

Today's personalization tools aren't great and put marketers at a disadvantage. This is why I'm excited to announce that we're rolling out Acquia Lift, a solution that equips the site owners with powerful website testing and content targeting tools to optimize content for each visitor. Acquia Lift learns about a visitor's interests and, based on these insights, uses machine learning algorithms to automate the delivery of personalized content. Marketers and site builders can test content, for example using A/B or multivariate testing, and even add rules about the types of user profiles that get specific content. There is implicit learning that takes place as well that continuously helps Acquia Lift provide increasingly more appropriate content to individuals. Attributes of the user, such as location, and even what the current weather is, can be taken into account in providing the right content. Check out this short Acquia Lift video if you want to learn more or see Acquia Lift in action:

As I talked and wrote about earlier, I believe personalization and contextualization will be a critical building block of the future of the web, and I'm excited to help make that a reality.